EU selects Van Rompuy and Ashton

Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy is to be president of the European Council and European Commissioner Catherine Ashton is to be high representative for foreign policy. The two appointments were agreed unanimously at a meeting of the EU’s national government leaders in Brussels this evening.

Presenting Van Rompuy and Ashton at a press conference after the meeting, with European Commission President José Manuel Barroso on the platform, Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister of Sweden, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, said: "This is the new leadership team of Europe."

The choice of Van Rompuy was not a surprise – he had emerged as the leading candidate over the course of the last three weeks. But the elevation of Ashton, who has never been elected to public office, propels into the forefront of EU politics someone who is still relatively new to international affairs.

Ashton became the European commissioner for trade in October last year, replacing Peter Mandelson, who returned to British politics. She had previously been leader of the UK parliament’s upper house and before that a justice minister.

Fact File

Council president

The president of the European Council is a new post created by the Lisbon treaty, which will come into effect on 1 December. Appointed for a two-and-a-half year term that can be extended to five years, the president will prepare and chair the meetings of heads of state and government, the European Council, which sets the broad policy priorities for the EU. Until now, the European Council has been chaired by the prime minister or president of the country that holds the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers. The rotating presidency will continue but will be limited to chairing ministerial meetings apart from those of foreign ministers. The Council president will also represent the EU at the level of head of state or government in international summits such as those with Russia, the US, China and Brazil.

High representative

The high representative for foreign and security policy will also, under the Lisbon treaty, be a vice-president of the European Commission. The marriage of two posts is supposed to ensure coherence between the foreign policy actions of the Council which include civilian and military missions and the traditional external policies where the Commission takes a leading role, such as trade, development aid and external assistance. The high representative will oversee the creation of a new external action service, made up of civil servants from the Commission, the secretariat of the Council and national diplomatic services. The service, which will work for the high representative, will be responsible for implementation of EU foreign policy. The European Commission’s representations abroad will be merged with the Council offices to become “EU delegations”.

The deal struck has the virtue of gender and political balance. Van Rompuy is from the centre-right European People’s Party, while Ashton, 53, is the candidate of the Party of European Socialists. It also balances a small member state (Belgium) against a large (the UK).

Van Rompuy, 62, a Flemish Christian Democrat, has been prime minister of Belgium for less than a year, having taken office on 30 December after the resignation of Yves Leterme. He said that he had agreed with Reinfeldt that he would begin in his EU post on 1 January.

The national leaders also agreed to appoint Pierre de Boissieu as secretary-general of the Council of Ministers. The Frenchman has been deputy secretary-general since 1999.